BREAKS
by Atheniandream
Summary: Wrote this the night before the Promo... Spooky. Spoilerish for D/H SPOILERS FOR ASTERISK


NOTES: Posting this Now Because I wrote it last night and then the Promo gave some stuff away that I had canon-ed.

SPOILERS FOR ASTERISK.

She honestly didn't believe he'd have it in him to track her down in her own neighbourhood. Outside her apartment sure, outside her gym, sure, Mike the puppy had already sought her out there once, she assumed it could or would happen again. But walking out of her local bakery carrying a coconut macaroon? This was not 'One of the Ways'… he looked like a rich man lost in the woods.

"You realize this is stalking right?" She said, giving him another frosty glare left over from their last encounter.

"Well, you won't answer my calls, so, here I am."

"What, assistant not in today?"

"I fired him."

It took a second to read his face, posture stiffening, withheld.

"He quit didn't he?" She stated.

"Oh No, I fired him. I'm not sure which came first though…" She didn't miss the quirk of his lip.

"What do you want Harvey? Aside from needing tips on how to keep a secretary." She sliced through the bullshit, just in case he was in the mood to lay any today.

"The guy was a wuss."

"Oh! Coming from the guy who couldn't fire his own secretary-" She turned doing a 180 in the opposite direction. It was better to leave now than stay and risk her own can of worms come flooding out her mouth like the exorcist child.

For a second it felt like she'd made it through the emotional fog.

"I'm Sorry." He said, loud enough for her to here this time.

She stopped, turned hands on her hips. "You know, you say that to my back a little too much."

"Well you keep walking away, what do you expect me to do?"

"I don't expect anything anymore, Harvey. Look, what's done is done, just leave it-"

"I went to visit my Dad."

She'd known as much. Five years ago this Tuesday just gone. _He was a good man, _she thought.

"I know. And…I'm sorry I didn't come with you this time." She said, and meant it. There were few regrets under her name, but this past week that had been one of them.

"Wait, you know? How do you know?" He tested.

"I'm Donna. I KNOW."

"Now look who's stalking." For a second, his eyes squared hers like a challenge.

He was chiselling her resolve brick by brick and she knew it by the way he made her feel, suddenly warm and unguarded. Same as she knew things must be rough at Pearson Hardman. He looked tired, worn a little around the edges and it didn't have to come from Rachel this time. She could see it, but it didn't soften any angles in her voice any less.

"What Harvey, just spit it out I have laundry to do."

He closed the distance just enough, just so whatever he wanted to say couldn't be listened upon by the many passers-by.

"I need you."

"To do what now?" She said, too quickly to take in the intention in his words.

"Come back. To Pearson Hardman."

"Because your assistant left? Harvey I don't quite think you remember the last time I was AT Pearson Hardman? I've been personally humiliated twice in that god-damned firm, a firm that you of all people know I worked my ass off for and you think because you want me to do something that I'm just going to jump at it? Things change, Harvey,"

"One thing hasn't',"

"Oh and what is that?"

"…I miss you."

She felt like she'd had the wind knocked out of her.

"I miss you." He repeated, every syllable sounding like a caress.

"Harvey, look it doesn't-"

"Donna? I miss, _you_." His hands clutched hers, thumbs rubbing the inside of her forearms trying to keep her focused on him.

"Harvey, it's only been three weeks," She countered, eyes starting to sting and rolling her eyes in the process.

"And I haven't spent more than a week apart from you in 12 years," he said.

She shook her head, his eyes trying to hold hers.

"And it took me till yesterday to figure that out, when I looked over at your desk, expecting you to be there because I needed you and you weren't. And know that you're not on vacation, or seeing your parents or sick which you never are. I can't stand that you're not there. And I can't stand anyone else doing your job."

She looked away, trying to get a hold on anything in the distance that wasn't making her feel like a teenage girl.

"I can't."

His eyes finally found hers. "Donna we got this far, I don't want to do it alone."

"Harvey. I can't be *that* Donna anymore. I can't give everything for you. I don't expect anything back, I never have but I can't put my life on hold for you just so that I'm there forever. Louis was right you know? I chose you. I always choose you. And it's destroying me, and in the end that's what caused me to – let's face it – crash and burn the memo. I realize that now. It was a warning to my consciousness screaming 'Get out. Get out, before you can't ever go back.'"

"We've already gone too far to go back, Donna, I"

"You have to realize that I can't be that thing that's yours that you never really have. If I come back to work, I won't be there for you 24/7. I can't be. I have to…get a life that doesn't revolve around you. There have to be rules this time."

It was the first time she had been completely honest with herself. With him. About him. It felt…odd, unsettling and kind of cliff-hangery. He was the only attractive lawyer in Manhatten of his age who had such a bad my-mother-screwed-around-on-my-dad-and-killed-his-heart complex that she'd ever read in any trashy second shelf novel.

"Okay...look, just hear me out."

He started, eyes unfocused, until he closed the remaining distance. She judged him, measuring her reaction against his, eyes wide and waiting.

"If I say the thing that I think you need me to say, then we can't ever go back from that. And I don't want to risk what we have right now. And I know that I can't do this job without you, and I don't *want* to do this job without you."

"There's a lot for me to think about."

"I don't want you to put your life on hold for me, Donna. But I miss that you're not there, even listening to all my private phone calls."

Her hand rose to silence him as her brain did the math. She hadn't accepted any job offers that had come through her door in the last 3 weeks, pretending that she was weighing her options and the pros and cons or pretending to just be a lady of leisure. The truth was, she missed him too.

"I'll think about it."

"Okay…24 hours. Deal?"

Besides the audacity of his words, he was right. And it's not like she wanted to be Harvey Specter's girlfriend. She seen those women and they were fleeting. He spent most of the time at the office with her and only needed a bed-buddy a couple times a week to take whatever edge he had off. He depended on her and she depended on him, and whether or not she had trained herself that this was a bad pattern to be in, it wasn't just her missing the way it was. He was missing it too. Maybe they just fit that way.

"Can I point out that, you're basing this ALL on the presumption that I do actually love you?"

"What's not to love?"

"You're an ass." She said, throwing her glance over her shoulder.

"And you're beautiful. And I'm taking you to lunch." He took her hand, tugging her slightly to move with him.

"I already had lunch."

"Early dinner then? You can scowl at me over a Margarita."

"Where's Ray?"

"Around the corner. He misses you almost as much as I do. And he's waiting."

"Aww. I love Ray…"


End file.
